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Friday, November 14, 2008

Maryland Counties Begin Push for 2009 Speed Camera Legislation

The Delegations to the Maryland General Assembly from Howard County and Prince George's County are both working on legislation to expand the use of speed cameras. These bills are planned to be introduced into the 2009 General Assembly session which begins January 14th and will end on April 13th.

Howard County: Senator James Robey (D, HCo) has proposed a bill to introduce speed cameras on 45mph roads in Howard County (Ho.Co. 06-09). The system currently in place in Montgomery County is limited to 35mph zones, and while nominally limited to "school and residential zones", in fact has already been applied to 6-lane divided roadways. Streets with 45mph limits will include major transportation arteries. Public hearings on this and other 2009 legislation from Howard County are scheduled for Tuesday November 25, 2008.

Prince George's County: The PG county delegation's bill is labeled PG 309-09. The first draft appears to allow a system almost identical to the current Montgomery County System. The next public hearing for the Prince George's Delegation is November 19, 2008.

Prince Georges County unsuccessfully pushed for speed cameras in 2008. Part of the motive may be that PG county residents feel they are being unfairly targeted by Cameras in Montgomery County. Whereas Montgomery County residents for the most part know where the cameras in their own location are and slow down immediately before the cameras, and will typically form a long angry line behind anyone who is actually driving below the speed limit for the entire length of even a marked photo enforcement zone (try it sometime), residents of neighboring counties are less likely to be familiar with the camera locations and signs. An article in the Gazette stated that a spokesperson from AAA “has noted that the county posts the cameras at well-traveled county borders and in residential zones where speed limits are considered artificially low.” That article quoted Councilman Thomas Dernoga (D-Dist. 1) of Laurel, whose district borders Montgomery County, as saying "On Powder Mill Road, they put the cameras to catch Prince George's County citizens."

Montgomery County: The Montgomery County Delegation is proposing two pieces of photo enforcement legislation. Bill MC 907-09 (which is not about speed cameras), proposed by Senator Richard Madaleno(D), and Delegates Al Carr(D) and Jeff Waldstreicher(D), would allow the use of photo enforcement on railroad crossings. The use of these devices was actually approved for Prince George's County in 2007, although it is unclear where or how many are actually in use. The bill sets the maximum fine for such violations at $100. As with speed cameras, these citations are considered a civil violation, with no points issued, and with court hearings decided on the standard of preponderance of evidence rather than beyond reasonable doubt. These devices have also been used in Arizona, where an activist group did this video about them.

The second bill, labeled MC912-09, aka the "Speed Camera Fairness Act", was proposed by Delegate Saqib Ali(D) and Senator Mike Lenett(D). It is intended to address Montgomery County's contract which is in violation of article 21-809(j) because it pays a per-ticket fee to Texas based ACS State and Local Solutions (previously known as Lockheed Martin IMS). The bill would change the language of the law from "If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid"to instead read "If the contractor provides services or equipment relating to:(1) The installation, operation, maintenance, or repair of a speed monitoring system(2) The issuance or processing of a citation for a violation of this subtitle recorded by a speed monitoring system; or(3) The collection or enforcement of a penalty for a violation of this subtitle recorded by a speed monitoring system"The legislators (who both voted in favor of statewide speed cameras in 2008) view this as necessary to remove a political impediment to authorizing more speed cameras and to provide political cover for Montgomery County officials while still allowing the current contract to run its course to the end of FY09. StopBigBrotherMD agrees that eliminating per-ticket payments to contractors is necessary, and that clarifying the language of the law may help limit further abuse. But we do not believe this means the system will then be “fair", since there are many other issues. Moreover, the current law already covers this contract situation, Montgomery County IS in violation of that law, and rather than holding the accountable, state and local officials are instead being deception and providing political cover. That makes it questionable whether future restrictions will be obeyed, no matter how they are worded, given that local jurisdictions know they will suffer no penalty for not complying.

While MoCo officials and delegates have stated that the per-ticket arrangement took them by surprise, it is also clear that some members of the Montgomery County delegation were aware of the per ticket payments because letters were exchanged with the MD Attorney General’s Office about the matter. There were also inconsistencies (noted in an earlier post) between what the OAG letter says the county told the AG about ACS’s role in the program, and what the county is currently stating. StopBigBrotherMD has obtained emails sent by a concerned constituent to several Montgomery County delegates about the per-ticket payments prior to their 2008 votes in favor of statewide speed cameras.

On Delegate Ali’s blog, he states that the contract only violates the spirit, not the letter, of the law. This is because while the wording of the existing law states “if a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor's fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid”, Montgomery County has stated that they, not ACS “operate” the cameras. His blog entry goes on to state that “Montgomery County Government is paying the contractors -- Affiliated Computer Services Inc (ACS) -- who own, maintain and run the speed cameras a $16.25 fee per ticket”. (Readers, feel free to pick up a dictionary or thesaurus of your choice and see that the words “run” and “operate” are synonyms. In this one, the word “operate” appears 7 times in the definition for the word “run”, with most relevant entry being: “to work, operate, or drive").

The trustworthiness of local officials may be compromised because there is a second conflict of interest aside from that of the contractor: local governments have a financial interest and wish to use the revenue to buy the votes of special interest groups. This legislation does not address that conflict of interest, or repair the damage which using law enforcement to collect revenue for the government does to our justice system. The fact that contract arrangements signed so far appear to be written to require the contractors to guarantee a profit for the local government, makes it clear that this is a major factor. The state conducted extensive fiscal impact statements about the various 2008 bills, to determine what the expected revenues would be.

Public hearings on the Montgomery County sponsored bills will occur on December 11th at 7pm (you must sign up in advance to attend).

Bills which would have authorized speed cameras in ALL Maryland Counties, had they not failed to pass at the last minute, were introduced in the 2008 session at the request of Governor O’Malley. O'Malley has pledged to reintroduce this legislation in 2009, however as of this writing a draft of the 2009 bills are not yet available.

StopBigBrotherMD.org has secured the first drafts of the 2009 bills mentioned in this posting and will be tracking the progress of and amendments to these bills -- as well as which legislators are voting for this legislation. Concerned citizens should get involved and contact their state representatives.

About Us

The mission of the Maryland Drivers Alliance is to protect the rights of Maryland drivers. We oppose programs and fees which treat motorists as cash cows or which do not give proper consideration to the interests and rights of the driving public.

The Maryland Drivers Alliance opposes the corrupting effect which automated enforcement has on our justice system. Our activities have helped to exonerate literally thousands of motorists from erroneous or wrongfully issued speed camera tickets. The spotlight our efforts have placed on corrupt or incompetent local government photo enforcement programs has forced agencies to be more transparent and less unfair in their treatment of motorists.

We support responsible enforcement of traffic laws by human officials and the proper application of traffic engineering principals to improve safety. We believe drivers should always make safety their first priority.

This site is not for profit and is run entirely by volunteers. Unlike the speed camera companies and their local government clients, we don't want your money.